Conjuring Future Art Practices

Let’s imagine another society for a moment.

Not the unattainable science-fiction society of a distant future, but a society where everyone would simply be able to lead a good life without hindering other lives, human or non-human: a society in which social justice and ecological sustainability would have been truly achieved.

What would our artistic practices look like in such a society?

Based on a work of collective speculative narration, this workshop proposes to project ourselves into a desirable future in order to imagine artistic practices that would be liberated from the neo-liberal and individualistic imperatives, the extractive conditions of production and the colonial relations that underpin our present. What would be the place and role of artistic practices in such a society? Who would practise them, for whom, and why? And in what way? Would ‘making art’ as we understand it today still make sense?

We will explore what the arts practices of a hypothetical just and sustainable future could teach us about the way we make art today. We will reflect on the transformative potential such arts practices could have if we would put them into practice already now.

conception & coordination: Christophe Meierhans
futurology: Anna Czapski
commission & production: ArBA-EsA, Bruxelles

iterations:
2023 — NEXT festival, Kortrijk
2024 — ArBA-EsA, Bruxelles
2025 — DAS theatre , Amsterdam | HfMT, Hamburg